Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a very bad, very dangerous man. He's a logical target for an assasin's bullet --not from us, but from any random Venzuelan. Now we'd better hope he stays alive, right? Thank you very much, Mr. Robertson.
WaPo and all the press are having the expected field day with Robertson's foolish comments. It's an A2 story --one of the few news stories on-line at the Post that invites "comments" (Why are we invited to comment on Robertson and not on Iraqi prisoners do you suppose?). The story being an occasion to trot out all the other controversial and embarrassing things he has said in the past few years. Christians are dumb, Christians are dumb, Christians are dumb. The Post mantra gets tedious, but I guess they have to keep reminding themselves. One could wish during these years of war for one A-section story on something hateful a prominent mufti has said, but that would require investigative reporting. Sneering is easier and doesn't attract fatwas.
And just in case we didn't notice that Christians are dumb, we get a snarky style-section story (is there any other kind?), in which we are told that dumb Christians support dumb Bush.
And quickly, various Bush administration officials performed the ritual political distancing from a figure who, this incident notwithstanding, represents the president's Christian conservative flank.
O, spare me. Robertson has done some good things during his political career, but his time has passed. I think most of the "activist Christians" the Post wishes to smear now regard him not as their leader, but as the kindly elderly uncle who embarrasses them when friends are over by referring to blacks as "colored." He's part of the family; they respect him for what he once was, but they're not taking orders from him.
Not that Robertson doesn't bear the full brunt of responsibility for letting his mouth be disengaged from his brain long enough to put an arrow in the quivver of the moral equivalence crowd. "Extremist Muftis and Christian Pastors --they're all the same."
"Au contraire," we will answer.
"Pat Robertson" they will reply. What are we supposed to say, "Yeah, but the difference is we don't pay any attention to our religious leaders?" Sigh.
*Will explain the asterisk another time.
